Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart would have felt the heat. Even as they consider draught e-commerce laws aimed at restricting online marketplaces—not only their own, but also the proposed super-app by India’s Tata Group—a new grave danger looms around the corner: a state-sponsored open network for digital commerce.
According to a government news release, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has formed a committee to ‘democratize digital commerce’ and ‘provide alternatives to proprietary e-commerce sites.’
In China, local retailers such as Taobao, Tmall, and JD.com enjoy unrivalled supremacy in online retail. But today, the only other billion-person-plus potential available to American capital is likewise going away.
